


Seventh Wheel

by MiladyDeWinter (Techno_Queen)



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Katherine and Nightlight have returned, Pathetic attempt at angst, Semi-Unreliable Narrator, and angst ensues, basically Jack feels left out and unwanted, might continue this if people are interested..., so now Jack feels like he's been replaced, this is mostly an excessively verbose character study, with no real plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 00:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13019145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Techno_Queen/pseuds/MiladyDeWinter
Summary: "...They succeeded. He still wasn't sure quite how, but they succeeded in the end. They poked and prodded past layers of fake smiles and false happiness, and dug through the sludge of irritation and defiance that he used to shield his heart. Like slabs of meat on a platter, his emotions were laid uncomfortably bare for all to see, and no matter how he squirmed or struggled, the Guardians resolutely tore down his mental barriers, his security blankets formed with jarring artificial laughter and semi-arrogant semi-confidence.He’d hated them for it.Then, he’d thanked them.Now, as he watched the girl in the yellow fur coat and the glowing boy in armour walk around the Workshop, watched as the four Guardians catered to their long-lost companions’ every whim, watched with growing trepidation in his heart as he was shunted to the side once more, he hated them all over again."





	Seventh Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> “Won't you come out  
> We could paint the town red  
> Kill a little time  
> You can sleep when you're dead  
> Cause it isn't over yet  
> Get it out of your head
> 
> Chase a couple hearts  
> We could leave 'em in shreds  
> Meet me in the gutter  
> Make the devil your friend  
> Just remember what I said  
> Cause it isn't over yet  
> Just remember what I said  
> Cause it isn't over yet
> 
> Say you have a little faith in me  
> Just close your eyes and let me lead  
> Follow me home
> 
> Need to have a little trust in me  
> Just close your eyes and let me lead  
> Follow me home  
> To where the lonely ones roam”—"Where The Lonely Ones Roam” by Digital Daggers

_"It is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all"_ \--Alfred Lord Tennyson

~=~  
......  
...  
......  
~=~

“My friends, I have good news. In seven days from now, Nightlight and Katherine are returning!”

~=~

Jack’s life was a remarkably empty one.

He’d always been rather useless, to be brutally honest. Winter spirits generally were, at least according to the majority of the spirit populace. _Cruel, unfeeling, savage, volatile,_ these were the words ascribed to Jack and his ilk, with no regard to the true importance and surreal beauty that the winter season bore. No, what others saw was only the sharp, dangerous side of winter: the frostbite and the black ice and the chill and the death.

...Mostly the death.

As a result, few lowered themselves to the point where they would bear Jack Frost’s company. He was a winter spirit, master of the harsh wind and the merciless cold, and such a personage was not worthy of the friendship of other, more self-controlled, spirits. It was best to ignore him, to pretend he did not exist and to hope that he would go away, for he was certainly not to be permitted in the society of decent folk.

Thus, for many years Jack spoke only to the wind and to himself, with no one to support him or comfort him. Oh, he had friends, certainly, other trickster spirits who did not care that he was a winter being, but they were...tricksters. Not someone who would let you cry on their shoulder, not someone who would hug you and tell you that everything would be all right. No, in that regard Jack was entirely on his own.

At least, until recently.

Becoming a Guardian turned out to be one of the most confusing events of his life. The change from long days and nights of silence and emptiness, punctuated only by the occasional snowball fight, to sudden, constant companionship was...abrupt, and still flabbergasted him to this day.

He'd tried to push them away, at first. Like a snail retreating into its shell when poked with a twig, he withdrew from the other Guardians, avoiding them as much as humanely possible. They would get sick of him eventually anyway, so it was best not to get to close, not to allow them to turn from acquaintances to friends and from friends to—no, he didn't want to use that word. They would never be his _family_. His family—the only one he'd ever had, and the only one he ever would have—were long dead and buried in the Burgess cemetery, their bones rotted to dust beneath the graveyard dirt. Though often times, it might seem to him that the Guardians could perhaps fill the hole his colonial family had left behind, he knew this would never be.

There was no point in trying to achieve the impossible. Better to push them away now rather than later, to keep them at arm's-length, to maintain a strictly business-like relationship. Jack Frost did not need—nor did he deserve—friends or a family. _Keep them away_ was the mantra, and he did his best to live up to it.

Except he failed. Like barnacles they clung to him, his attempts to get rid of them only making them cling tighter. As North put it one time, they were determined to "pull him out of shell shrieking and kicking" (Jack was fairly certain that was _not_ how the saying went), whether he liked it or not.

...They succeeded. He still wasn't sure quite how, but they succeeded in the end. They poked and prodded past layers of fake smiles and false happiness, and dug through the sludge of irritation and defiance that he used to shield his heart. Like slabs of meat on a platter, his emotions were laid uncomfortably bare for all to see, and no matter how he squirmed or struggled, the Guardians resolutely tore down his mental barriers, his security blankets formed with jarring artificial laughter and semi-arrogant semi-confidence.

He’d hated them for it.

Then, he’d thanked them.

Now, as he watched the girl in the yellow fur coat and the glowing boy in armour walk around the Workshop, watched as the four Guardians catered to their long-lost companions’ every whim, watched with growing trepidation in his heart as he was shunted to the side once more, he hated them all over again.

~=~

There was someone once, long ago, who said “it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.”

Now, Jack could say with confidence that whoever had said that had been an imbecile of the highest order. It would have been better, a thousand times better, if he had never tasted companionship and had spent the remainder of his eternal lifetime in utter loneliness. Now that he knew what it was like to have friends, to not be isolated, it hurt all the more when he was forced to endure solitude again. 

Oh, he tried, at first. Tried to join in on the conversations, tried to make friends with the Guardians of Storytelling and of the Moon, but it was impossible. Katherine and Nightlight had been there long before Jack, had been the first Guardians of Childhood. They were more close to the Big Four than Jack could ever hope to be, had shared more adventures and mysteries with them than he ever had. He was an outsider, and he knew it.

The other Guardians clearly realized this too, which was perhaps the reason that they were beginning to phase him out, little by little. Perhaps they finally understood that Jack was useless, that he was simply a fifth (or rather seventh) wheel in the perfect mechanism that was their alliance, a fixture that simply burdened the others while serving no true purpose of its own. Perhaps this was why they ignored him, forsaking him in favour of entertaining the newcomers.

(Even the yetis neglected him now, preferring to fawn over the new arrivals than to pay attention to the waste of space that Jack was.)

(It hurt.)

Still, he smiled. Though the yetis and elves simply brushed past him as if he wasn't there, though Katherine looked at him with hints of scorn in her fog-gray eyes, though those he had learned to call friends began to look _through_ him instead of _at_ him...he smiled.

He had to. He was the Guardian of Fun, after all, and though he should fail in everything else, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—fail this job. He owed it to Manny, to the Guardians, to the children. He had to keep smiling.

(Because if he was smiling, he was happy. That was how it worked: people only smiled if they were happy, so if he smiled, he must be happy, and if he was happy, than he could do his job.)

(...It still hurt, but no one needed to know that)

~=~

The day that he realized that it was all over came all too soon for his liking. A bad day, a misplaced prank, a few harsh words...all cumulated into a terrible catastrophe of raw emotions and lost tempers. As one, the Guardians ordered him to leave, to depart from their ranks and never return.

He obeyed.

High over the barren white of the North Pole, he mused that he was lucky that their friendship had lasted this long. They were going to get rid of him anyway. At least he'd had a taste of what companionship was, at least for a little while he hadn't been alone.

For it was better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all...

...Wasn't it?

**Author's Note:**

> So...this is still kinda incomplete? And I didn't know how to finish it? So I posted it as-is?
> 
> ....Anyway. As you've probably gathered, Nightlight and Jack are separate people, because reasons. And the reason I'm calling Nightlight the "Guardian of the Moon" is because he doesn't seem to be the Guardian of a specific emotion/feeling, but he was MiM's bodyguard when MiM was a kid, so...Guardian of the Moon. Voila.
> 
> Also, there are way too many words in this mess. 
> 
> ...Thoughts?


End file.
